Jim, You are deeply confused, in fact plain mistaken, about the nature of *evidence*. Evidence is physical, scientific. There has to be a** physical connection** posited between the evident/visible objects/events and the theorised/invisible objects/events. Footprints in the snow are physical evidence for the theory that someone trod – put their feet down there. Footprints are or could be physically connected to feet treading.
Your finding or not finding the proof for some math. theorem does not constitute any kind of evidence that you have been inspired or not by God. There is no evident/visible **physical connection** between your maths/logical activities and a God. This doesn’t exclude the possibility that that is the case – nor does it exclude the possiblity that you are driven instead by the Devil, fairies or a severe form of schizophrenia. There just is no physical * for any of these connections whatsoever. OTOH if we could find some obvious chemical imbalance in your brain, we might have physical evidence that you are schizophrenic- though it would still be a theory. That you talk of “rational evidence” is a sign of your deep confusion. In the realm of formal rationality - logic, maths, and computation esp. – there is no such thing as evidence at all. These fields exist by their own cognizance in artificial worlds divorced from the real world and evidence. So we can and do talk of mathematical *proofs*, but we do not talk of *evidence*. You rarely deal in evidence – I keep complaining that you produce no **examples** for your ideas – I could equally say: you produce no evidence. And you v. rarely do. From: Jim Bromer Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 7:32 PM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Feeds for AGI conference? I am glad you responded. First of all I do not think that your research is anything to brag about. If you actually tried to understand what I had said, you'd acknowledge that I kept repeating the fact that I was trying to make the case that -It was so unlikely that I would actually find a polynomial time solution to Boolean Satisfiability that: -Figuring it out would constitute rational evidence supporting the view that I did receive some divine guidance on the effort. -But if I did not then it would obviously constitute rational evidence that I did not. I believe that the fact that you missed the "rational evidence" part is telling because that is exactly my criticism of your research and the weak criteria for the selection of the papers for the conference and the lack of wise advice that you offer your supporters. I am not saying that you don't know anything but it is very clear that you do not know how to evaluate evidence. Years and years of actual research where you believed that you knew the answers so well so that you could write paper after paper elaborating your theories without anything to show is less than inspiring. Sorry for being unpleasant about this but I am not the one who has shown blatant prejudice against rational methods. It is true that I have written message after message where I thought that I had some valuable insight but I haven't disregarded the evidence. For example, Watson and contemporary search engine technology have gone way beyond anything you have worked on. The idea that you can declare them "narrow AI" as if your proclamation proved the validity of some of the crackpot ideas that you have advanced is a good example where the inability to recognize the value of evidence has interfered with your judgement. Jim Bromer On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Ben Goertzel <[email protected]> wrote: Hmmm... the dude who has repeatedly filled my inbox with ideas about how "the Lord gave me some guidance on my effort to find a polynomial time solution to Boolean Satisfiability," and so forth -- thinks I and the rest of the academic/industry AGI research community can't be taken seriously hmmm... ;p ... ben g On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: You guys can't be taken seriously. Jim Bromer On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 5:25 AM, Ben Goertzel <[email protected]> wrote: Matt, > The majority of papers offer design proposals or prove mathematical > theorems somehow related to intelligence. They all make strong > arguments for their case, but we really don't know if the methods are > useful or not. Yes, that's fair. AGI is still at an early stage and most research is exploratory. However, we're in a time of rapid exponential advancement, so the passage for early to mature stages of a technology can sometimes occur faster than expected ... this may be the case with AGI over the next decade ;) -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10561250-470149cf Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription -- Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org "My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription AGI | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
